What is an API Attack

An API attack is a cyber-attack that attempts to manipulate API functionality for malicious purposes. Successful API attack outcomes include gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data, abusing business logic to use the API unexpectedly, and denial of service (DoS) attacks that prevent legitimate API use.

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The Double-Edged Sword of APIs: Speeding Development, Expanding Attack Surfaces

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) facilitate connections between different pieces of software, enabling them to communicate and exchange data. They have become fundamental to modern software development, allowing new applications to integrate with existing systems. Rather than developing an application from scratch, developers can use API calls to connect an application to other systems and build new services on top of existing functionality.

This significantly increases development speed. However, it also introduces new entry points for damaging cyber-attacks that are growing in frequency.

The Recent Growth of API Attacks

Reports show API security breaches tripled in 2024, and over 50% of all CISA exploited vulnerabilities recorded in the year were also API-related. This is a significant increase from 2023 when they only accounted for 20% of recorded vulnerabilities. As businesses incorporate more APIs into their offerings and extend their attack surface, threat actors are increasingly targeting them to gain unauthorized access to data and disrupt operations.

The growth in API use and the new risks they pose are magnified by AI integration. Through APIs offered by AI companies, developers can integrate artificial intelligence capabilities into their software. Creating new products and services that build on top of the latest AI models.

However, the explosion in AI-powered APIs is creating a huge security gap. 2024 saw an astonishing 1205% increase in AI-driven API security vulnerabilities. 57% of AI-powered APIs can be accessed externally, and 89% do not implement proper authentication measures. Many of these API security vulnerabilities enable injection flaws, misconfigurations, and a newer threat – memory corruption and overflow related to AI’s use of high-performance binary APIs.

But what is different regarding APIs, and how do they enable new attack vectors?

Challenges with API Attacks: What Makes It Different?

APIs govern the interactions between different applications, accessing and transporting sensitive business data. They control the requests made and the authorization of each API call, determining what data it can access.

Additionally, APIs are regularly designed for use by external clients, making them accessible from the public internet. They are open to bad actors who can send requests and test the limits of the API and its security features. Providing APIs to external clients also enables potential abuse and the bypassing of protection if their account is hijacked. Plus, incorporating external APIs into your own applications means relying on others’ code and its potential vulnerabilities.

Beyond the API security risks inherent to their design and function, organizations must protect their implementation – even when deployed as part of a large, diverse, and complex ecosystem.

API sprawl or the rapid spread of API use at an organization, creates significant security challenges. As new APIs are deployed and existing APIs are updated, it is difficult to maintain documentation, governance, and security across the entire organization. Development teams are left with the challenge of identifying all potential vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in a constantly evolving ecosystem.

Other security challenges specific to APIs include:

API Drift: related to sprawl, API drift refers to updating an API without properly documenting the changes or assessing the potential security consequences. The API drifts away from its original implementation, leading to security gaps, broken integrations, and misconfigurations.
Low-and-Slow Attacks: Rather than exploiting a vulnerability once, threat actors are increasingly performing reconnaissance activities to test for flaws and the potential opportunities they offer for data exfiltration. This includes using different sequences of API calls rather than a single request and focusing on business logic attacks that require additional context.
Testing Issues: With agile development models constantly updating a complex API ecosystem, it is impossible to test for every known API vulnerability before deployment. This means APIs require runtime protection to enforce security policies constantly.

Traditional application security processes and technology are not designed for the unique challenges of APIs. Preventing API attacks and data breaches requires dedicated API security capabilities and tools.

Common Types of API Attacks

Given the distinct nature of API security breaches compared to traditional application threats, OWASP (Open Worldwide Application Security Project) began releasing lists of the most common API security vulnerabilities. Complementing its top 10 list of web application security vulnerabilities, the latest API version lists the 10 most common threats as:

Broken Object Level Authorization: Unauthorized data access due to weak access controls.

Broken Authentication: Utilizing a range of methods (stealing tokens, credential stuffing, brute-force) to access data with permission.

Broken Object Property Level Authorization: A combination of excessive data exposure or mass assignment to manipulate API endpoints.

Unrestricted Resource Consumption: Enabling brute force attacks due to failing to restrict resource usage, such as rate limiting.

Broken Function Level Authorization: Failing to implement proper authorization processes.

Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows: Exposing business flows without understanding the potential consequences.

Server-Side Request Forgery: Processing user-controlled, potentially malicious URLs on the back-end server.

Security Misconfiguration: Failing to maximize security through API settings.

Improper Inventory Management: Security gaps due to out-of-date inventories or poor data logs to track use.

Unsafe Consumption of APIs: Consuming API data or abusing third-party integrations by bypassing authentication or testing API responses.

API Attack Incident Response

If one of these or another API attack type is successful, you need an incident response plan to mitigate the impact of the breach and return to normal operations as quickly as possible. Steps typically contained in an incident response plan include:

Assessing the level of the breach in terms of systems, data, and user accounts.

Containing the damage through shutting down systems, quarantining suspected malware, and isolating suspicious accounts.

Explaining to shareholders the scale and extent of the API attack.
Analyzing the attack to determine how to prevent future instances.

Best Practices for Preventing API Attacks

There are a number of API security best practices that help limit vulnerabilities and prevent attacks from gaining unauthorized access. These include:

Rate Limiting and Throttling: To prevent DoS attacks where a large number of requests from attackers overwhelm your API.

Implementing an API 게이트웨이: A tool that provides a single entry point for API requests, gateways simplify the implementation of security policies.

Following Industry Frameworks: A number of API security standards (OAuth, OpenID, etc.) provide robust authentication and authorization frameworks to follow.

Implementing Runtime Protection: Monitoring API traffic in real-time to detect malicious activity.
Run Regular Security Tests: Identify vulnerabilities and assess the level of security for your APIs by running regular tests (penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, etc).
Encrypt Data: Ensure sensitive data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.
Validate User Inputs: Check API requests to ensure they contain valid inputs that match expected parameters (length, format, type, etc).
Define Narrow Responses: Similarly, ensure your API responses are limited to only approved content types to reduce the risk of returning sensitive data.
Maintain Comprehensive Visibility: Implement continuous API discovery to ensure you have a full picture of your ecosystem, including shadow or zombie APIs.

API Security with CloudGuard WAF

With the growing risk of API attacks and vulnerabilities being introduced by incorporating AI capabilities, now is the perfect time to take API security seriously. The leading prevention-first web application firewall on the market, CloudGuard WAF from Check Point, identifies and analyzes all of your APIs to tailor specific protections for your business.

From enforcing API schema and DDoS prevention to monitoring API updates and securing sensitive business data, CloudGuard offers best-in-class API security for every business regardless of their operations. You’re welcome to request a demo.